


Of Body and Mind

by CaptainMarty



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bondlock, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, trans!Q
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:06:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1595996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainMarty/pseuds/CaptainMarty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mind over body is supposed to be easy for a Holmes, but Cade's struggle is a little bit more intense than his brothers'. Will making his way to the top in Q Branch, under the interested but uniformed eye of Captain Bond, make or break him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Inspired by [this photo](http://zooeyscigar.tumblr.com/post/82902803184/3403x2431-ben-whishaw-for-prada).)

Cade was nervous.

The rattle of the wheels on the tracks, the bored looks of the riders around him, the shuffling of his own paper on his lap could do nothing to distract him. His usual methods of dealing with boredom (finding pattens in the seeming chaos of the world around him) wasn’t helping at all. Yes, the intersection of the pole to the ceiling and the angle at which a rider hung from it created a non-Euclidean geometric shape (impossible in nature), but so what? Cade was on his way to perhaps the most important conversation of his life.

Military fucking intelligence.

Years of working hard. Years of trying to get the right people to notice him while also trying to stay off the radar. Years of battling his body’s attempts to exert control over his mind.

Today it was paying off in a big way.

This conversation wasn’t a guarantee that he would get a job, of course. The Chief of Staff (Tanner, Cade recalled) had been clear that this meeting was a test. Cade was one of the best hackers the world had ever seen, but he was also “suspiciously quiet”.

Cade had huffed at that. Being clever didn’t mean one had to prove it over and over and over again. He’d leaned patience from his mother, the brilliant mathematician who was one proof away from everything she wanted. He’d learned silence from his father, the retired assassin who wanted nothing more than to pass among regular folk as one of them. He’d learned dedication from his brother Mycroft, who was now the red hand of England. And finally, he’d learned passion from his brother Sherlock, who pursued anything he deemed “fascinating” until the chase left him a used-up husk.

Whatever test MI6 could throw at him, be it physical or mental, Cade was certain he’d pass… Well, with one possible exception.

Cade refocused on his newspaper, then reached up and stroked at his mustache in a self-soothing habit he couldn’t break. It had taken years, more chemicals than he’d cared to admit, lessons in body movement, voice therapy, and so much more to get this far. The facial hair was a physical representation of success after years of struggle, and it calmed him now. Cade, like approximately 2-5% of the world’s population, had been born with a body that didn’t match his gender. Though the work he’d been doing since he was a teenager meant that his body was closer to what his mind thought it should be, it was up in the air whether MI6 agreed.

The train slowed, calling out Cade’s stop before he could start to work himself up again. MI6 wasn’t his only choice. If they rejected him because of mere biology… Well, Cade was only 26. Perhaps in a few years, their attitude would change. In the meantime, Cade would continue inventing the quiet but important technologies that would change the world, one small implementation at a time.

With a sigh and straight spine, Cade dismounted the train and went to meet his future.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock opened the door with too much force, staggering back a little as it swung inward. He was in his pyjamas and dressing gown, bare feet gripping the carpet like gargoyle toes. Even through the cascade of rain between them, masked in the twilight, Cade could see the dark circles under his eyes and the way his pupils were pinpricks in the startling blue they all shared. Cade would have sighed, would have yelled, would have punched his brother in the face if he had had any extra energy. But he didn’t, so he couldn’t.

"Coke? Heroin? Morphine?" Cade asked instead, wanting to know which Sherlock he was going to be dealing with tonight.

"What’s wrong?" Sherlock asked, eyes narrowing as he took in Cade’s appearance. Cade squeezed his own eyes shut, knowing full well what he looked like.

Like something chewed up and spit out. Used up. Broken.

And it was true.

Sherlock didn’t ask any more questions as he led Cade inside. The flat was even tinier, even scummier than his usual selection. The only mercy was that it seemed to lack a proper kitchen. For once, the air was free of the typical foul smells of Sherlock’s hobbies. Cade didn’t know if the lack of the smells of formaldehyde, decomposition, sulfur, and more were a blessed relief or an utter nightmare. If it meant that Sherlock was spending more time at St. Bart’s, hurrah for everyone involved. (Except Molly, the poor, battered, besotted creature.) But if it meant that Sherlock’s depression had reached the point where he was failing to do what he loved best…

Cade pushed that alarming thought aside for a moment, having little enough room in his own mind for his own internal terrors.

"I got the job," he said, forgetting for a moment to make his voice anything other than soft.

"Succumbed to Mycroft’s machinations, then?" Sherlock dismissed, waving a skeletal hand in annoyance before he began to divest the ratty sofa of its tattered medical journals.

"Hardly," Cade retorted in annoyance. "And please remember that while you may choose him to bear the weight of your drug-induced paranoia, I have no quarrel with Mikey."

With a rough, loud snap of the dusty afghan that had been laying along the back of the sofa, Sherlock made it clear that he didn’t wish to pursue that argument. “Which department will you be running?” he asked instead, gesturing to the just-cleared right side.

"I won’t be," Cade sighed, falling into the inherited sofa’s soft cushions.

"Oh? What a waste."

"Not a waste. Q Branch is massive. I need time to learn it before going any further up the ladder."

"Up the ladder," Sherlock repeated. The disdain in his voice was obvious. But then he gave Cade a sharp look, one which Cade wasn’t prepared to hide from, then settled, birdlike, next to his brother.

"So you got the job," he said, wrapping his threadbare dressing gown around himself as he got comfortable. "Then why this?" he asked, gesturing at Cade’s face.

It wasn’t a surprise to Cade when he reached and found his face still wet, despite having been out of the rain for some minutes now. His body betrayed him in so many other ways, allowing unauthorized tears to slip free without his knowledge seemed rather small.

"I went out to celebrate," he confessed, voice quiet enough not to carry beyond where their bodies pressed close, thigh to shoulder. Sherlock’s thinness was disconcerting, but the physical contact was enough to soothe. Cade breathed, wretched traitor of a body shuddering on both the inhale and the exhale.

"Where did you go?" Sherlock asked.

"It doesn’t matter."

"You met someone."

"A man."

Sherlock held his breath, and Cade loved him so much in that moment, it hurt.

"I just wanted to feel good, even better than what I was feeling after learning that M hired me."

"You wanted to extend the high," Sherlock said, ashamed and understanding.

"He was fine. I told him. About me. He was drunk. I was drunk. I think he… The idea. He liked it. He said, uh… called it…"

"You don’t have to say, Cadie. I know."

Cade wanted to flinch at the nickname, so close to the nickname of his before, but the flinch didn’t come. Everything else was just too much.

"But I couldn’t. He tried. I tried. He came like he was dying, whispering my name in such beautiful gratitude." Now the tears came faster, the shaking harder. "But I couldn’t, Lock. I just… couldn’t."

Sherlock pretended to ignore Cade as he sobbed. Cade shoved his fist in his mouth and curled over his stomach, riding it out as best he could with someone to watch over him while he wept. Sherlock had his eyes closed, hands templed over his mouth, pretending he was above paying attention to such displays.

When Cade could feel again, he pressed his forehead to Sherlock’s shoulder. “I don’t understand it.”

"You know what gender dysphoria is," Sherlock dismissed.

"Yes, I do," Cade conceded. "But I don’t _understand_ it.”

Sherlock peered down at Cade, then reached out to brush the hair from Cade’s watery, begging eyes. “Your mind and body don’t match. That’s bound to be problematic.”

"That’s just it," Cade pleaded, not letting Sherlock escape his gaze. "For once, my mind and body were in agreement. And orgasm is such a simple thing."

"Apparently not."

"Apparently not."

Time passed. Cade found himself falling asleep next to Sherlock, feeling just a little less alone as the rain outside lightened then faded into quiet midnight.

"Will it get better?" he finally asked.

Sherlock shrugged, sharp shoulder nudging Cade’s cheek uncomfortably. “I don’t know.” Then he smirked down at Cade, more himself than he had been since Cade arrived. “But congratulations on the job.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Marty on Tumblr](http://captainmartya.tumblr.com)


End file.
